Alan Vega Quotes

I enjoy looking at old photos of some of my favorite rock icons, but also get inspired from the younger bands that are coming up and really creating their own style, their own image.

I am one of the biggest Laura Nyro fans. I still listen to that stuff incessantly. Laura Nyro does not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Songwriter Hall of Fame? Absolutely.

R. Kelly is one of the pioneers that I grew up listening to. If he's classified as an R&B artist, then I want to be like that. I don't want to have limits either.

Who's the new Ramones, who's the new Guns 'N Roses, who's the new Motley Crue, who's the new Black Sabbath? They're coming, they're on the street, they're 16, 17 years old.

My dad took me to all the best rock and punk shows when I was growing up and music has always been a part of my life. So I'm very interested in the music scene and I suppose that's why I've ended up going out with musicians. Dave Pirner is still one of my best friends.

The trouble is now, with rock'n'roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in.

When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to.

When it comes to the stage, I can't help but be inspired by people like George Clinton, Elton John and Alice Cooper.

We'd play the American bases and found all these wonderful records by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke. Without American music, there would not have been a British Invasion.

I've interviewed everyone from Joe Strummer to Iggy Pop.

People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.

I've always been the first to admit that Jimi was a very big influence on my early stuff.

I don't know if I miss it per se, but I do miss the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any rock 'n' roll out there anyplace. Everything does seem kind of tame. It's even hard in Manhattan to go out and find a good band to go see.

I grew up loving classic rock music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones - and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What is this?' I was eight and it changed my life.

It's like this - these five members have been influenced of course by other groups, because that's where this generation's groups came from - an environment like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and The Who. People like that.

The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didn't have, 'I love Frank' on it, it had, 'I love AC/DC', 'Guns N Roses', 'Pearl Jam'. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.

My inner rock chick has always been there. I grew up listening to a lot of rock music through my sisters, who were teenagers while I was young, so they had control of the radio.

For me, Memphis has always been a city that holds a great deal of meaning and also leads me to a lot of thinking. Besides Sun Studio, which helped put rock n' roll on the map all over the world, the legendary Stax Studio also called Memphis home.

I was a hard rocker when I was in high school.

I really don't feel the need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, at the end of the day, it's just somebody's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have a particular process, and they're welcome to do it however they want to do it.

I looked at Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the boys up there thinking, I want to be that.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

In the Sixties, you needed talent to make it.

I've always been a rocker. Like ever since I was really young. I had a crush on the Green Day guys. That's always been what I was like and been my interest.

Elvis was the king. No doubt about it. People like myself, Mick Jagger and all the others only followed in his footsteps.